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"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
OK, so I'm a little behind the times with some goodies.
One of my clients got rid of all its PCs with floppy drives with floppy
drives, which created a minor problem for me because for years I've been
delivering the stuff I write for it on floppies and sometimes via email.
The client's preferred medium was a floppy.

Not that I am a fan of floppies. I ain't. They're too fragile for my
taste. CDs were sometimes problematical, too.

Anyway, I know they've been out for a while, but I never bought one. I did
last week...a half a gig PNY USB "flashdrive" card. All the client's new
machines have USB 2.0 ports, and damn if these little keychain "hard
drives" aren't fast.

Cheap, too. A $10 rebate from PNY made my final cost about a double
sawbuck.

Great for swapping files among the computers at home and the office, too.
FAST.

Did I mention...FAST?

Yep, and cheap as you said. I have been using a 1 gig ScanDisk CruzerMini
for some time now. A very useful tool when indeed.

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Harry Krause wrote:

I actually bought the cheapest one I found.

And that can be called the Harry Krause method. IMO, you are a bit too
quick in dismissing quality and best value, but then, you have been
doing that in all things...

--
Skipper

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"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in that
first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.

Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also sprang
for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300, iirc) so my
little girl might be more interested. All that and a wide-carriage d/m
printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A couple of years later, a
guy I was building houses with bought an XT ........ with a built-in hard
drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!! Brave New World!!! Overwhelming
technology run rampant!!!

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On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:56:57 -0500, Harry Krause wrote:

*JimH* wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
Yep, and cheap as you said. I have been using a 1 gig ScanDisk CruzerMini
for some time now. A very useful tool when indeed.



I actually bought the cheapest one I found at BestBuy. It was $30 for a
half a gig and when I got to checkout, the clerk gave me a $10 rebate
receipt.

Floppies were useful when you could boot a computer off them if your HD
failed. Nowadays, it takes a CD to boot up a ocmputer.

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in
that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.

(Ever thought of snipping your posts, guys??)

I gotcha on the "old-geezer-geek contest": My first computer had a 241K
drive: 8 inch! You could start your car whith the 120VAC drive motor.

Then again: from turning on the "on-switch" to editing a document (in
WordStar) was 20 seconds.

Lloyd

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"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in that
first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.

Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300, iirc) so
my little girl might be more interested. All that and a wide-carriage d/m
printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A couple of years later,
a guy I was building houses with bought an XT ........ with a built-in
hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!! Brave New World!!!
Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!


First system I bought for the company I worked for at the time (we designed
disk subsystems for the DEC and Data General market). $4400. 512k memory,
could not get the full 640K in the early 80's. 8" floppy. Hard drive was
separate from the controller card. My boss at the time went to Quantum and
designed the first fully integrated disk drive. The "Hard Card". Internal
disk controller to the drive. Latest system was an on sale Compaq with 80GB
drive, 256mb memory, memory card reader built in and 8 USB ports, 2.5ghz.
$450. No monitor.

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"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
John Gaquin wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in
that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.

Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300, iirc)
so my little girl might be more interested. All that and a wide-carriage
d/m printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A couple of years
later, a guy I was building houses with bought an XT ........ with a
built-in hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!! Brave New World!!!
Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!
My next PC was an 8086-based unit from "Eagle," and it had a 10-meg hard
drive. Wow!

And how about memory and this quote:

"640k ought to be enough for anyone" - Bill Gates, 1981

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Harry Krause wrote:

I would have bought a Bayliner, like the one you once claimed to own
but, of course, never did.

That's quite a statement, Krause. Never thought I'd see those words
emanating from your keyboard. But then, it would have given you a way to
accept The Challenge, of course, in your much younger days.

--
Skipper

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Harry Krause wrote:
John Gaquin wrote:

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with
one floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive
in that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.


Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300,
iirc) so my little girl might be more interested. All that and a
wide-carriage d/m printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A
couple of years later, a guy I was building houses with bought an XT
........ with a built-in hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!!
Brave New World!!! Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!

My next PC was an 8086-based unit from "Eagle," and it had a 10-meg hard
drive. Wow!

My first home computer was an 8086 IBM that work sold off as surplus.
It didn't even have a harddrive.

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"Don White" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
John Gaquin wrote:

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in
that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.


Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300, iirc)
so my little girl might be more interested. All that and a
wide-carriage d/m printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A
couple of years later, a guy I was building houses with bought an XT
........ with a built-in hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!!
Brave New World!!! Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!

My next PC was an 8086-based unit from "Eagle," and it had a 10-meg hard
drive. Wow!

My first home computer was an 8086 IBM that work sold off as surplus. It
didn't even have a harddrive.

How about this *handy* device from 1973........the original cell phone:

Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/Brick.jpg

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"Bill McKee" wrote in message
ink.net...

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in
that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.

Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300, iirc)
so my little girl might be more interested. All that and a wide-carriage
d/m printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A couple of years
later, a guy I was building houses with bought an XT ........ with a
built-in hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!! Brave New World!!!
Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!


First system I bought for the company I worked for at the time (we
designed disk subsystems for the DEC and Data General market). $4400.
512k memory, could not get the full 640K in the early 80's. 8" floppy.
Hard drive was separate from the controller card. My boss at the time
went to Quantum and designed the first fully integrated disk drive. The
"Hard Card". Internal disk controller to the drive. Latest system was an
on sale Compaq with 80GB drive, 256mb memory, memory card reader built in
and 8 USB ports, 2.5ghz. $450. No monitor.


I worked on Mainframes for NCR Corp while going through university. 20k of
memory and $200k with tape drives and random mag card readers, with punch
card / tape I/O and an all uppercase printer. When I went to work for a
company making an IBM Mainframe clone 303x model 8 meg of memory was
enormous.

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" *JimH*" wrote ...

How about this *handy* device from 1973........the original cell phone:

Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/Brick.jpg

That's a picture of Marty Cooper with an early mock-up of the first *portable*
cell phone. We didn't get it into production until the early eighties and what
a PITA that was. I still have some prototypes of the various ceramic hybrid
modules (~20) that plugged into the main motherboard. As I recall it cost ~$400
just to produce a functional logic module in the early days. The first units
sold for about $4500.

Funny story: One of the major difficulties was getting it to pass a 4' drop test
without breaking internal modules. To celebrate initial production the group had
a big get together at a local bar and presented Marty with a gold plated unit.
As it was passed around and admired one of my rather bold and compulsive
co-workers held it at shoulder height, proclaimed that "If it's a production
unit it should pass the drop test" and dropped it on the floor. There was
stunned silence for a few seconds followed by nervous laughter as it was picked
up and determined to still work. The look on Marty's face was priceless. I
think Gerry might have suffered consequences had he not been so brilliant. He
was a very early proponent of digital voice encoding.

-rick-

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"-rick-" wrote in message
...

" *JimH*" wrote ...

How about this *handy* device from 1973........the original cell phone:

Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/Brick.jpg

That's a picture of Marty Cooper with an early mock-up of the first
*portable* cell phone. We didn't get it into production until the early
eighties and what a PITA that was. I still have some prototypes of the
various ceramic hybrid modules (~20) that plugged into the main
motherboard. As I recall it cost ~$400 just to produce a functional logic
module in the early days. The first units sold for about $4500.

Funny story: One of the major difficulties was getting it to pass a 4'
drop test without breaking internal modules. To celebrate initial
production the group had a big get together at a local bar and presented
Marty with a gold plated unit. As it was passed around and admired one of
my rather bold and compulsive co-workers held it at shoulder height,
proclaimed that "If it's a production unit it should pass the drop test"
and dropped it on the floor. There was stunned silence for a few seconds
followed by nervous laughter as it was picked up and determined to still
work. The look on Marty's face was priceless. I think Gerry might have
suffered consequences had he not been so brilliant. He was a very early
proponent of digital voice encoding.

-rick-



Nice story and how wonderful to have been part of history.

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"Bill McKee" wrote in message
ink.net...
First system I bought for the company I worked for at the time (we
designed
disk subsystems for the DEC and Data General market). $4400. 512k
memory,
could not get the full 640K in the early 80's. 8" floppy. Hard drive was
separate from the controller card. My boss at the time went to Quantum
and
designed the first fully integrated disk drive. The "Hard Card".
Internal
disk controller to the drive. Latest system was an on sale Compaq with
80GB
drive, 256mb memory, memory card reader built in and 8 USB ports, 2.5ghz.
$450. No monitor.

In 1981, I bought an IBM 8088. I believe it ran at 1 MHz.

My first upgrade was to a Hercules graphics card, so that I could play
ScionChess in 3D. I also had a 300 baud modem...it was the cradle
type...that you put the actual phone receiver into. At one point, I think I
could type faster than 300 baud... :)

The next year, I put in an MFM 10 MB hard drive, and thought I was in
heaven. That drive cost $1500.00! I proclaimed at that time, no one would
ever need a hard disk bigger than 10 MB! Heh heh...

I still have a $4000.00 386 in a closet somewhere...which I used to run
AutoCAD, with the Boat Hull design software plug-in...ouch! :)


--
-Netsock

"It's just about going fast...that's all..."
http://home.columbus.rr.com/ckg/